Strawberry Season

Strawberry season is almost over here in the Piedmont of North Carolina. Last weekend I bought 7 gallons of strawberries (for $10/gallon) from the farmers market. These strawberries, along with many other local strawberries that were for sale, are pesticide free. That's fantastic since conventional strawberries are listed as one of the "dirty dozen" (fruits and vegetables most highly contaminated with pesticides).

I'm stocking the freezer so that we'll have strawberries to enjoy the rest of the year. We don't buy strawberries in December. December strawberries come from far away places and because of that, they're picked when they're pink in order to make the journey. A pink, hard strawberry is not a strawberry as far as I'm concerned. Nothing compares to the flavor of strawberries picked at the peak of the season.

I froze 5 1/2 gallons of whole strawberries. I froze them whole this year so I can use them in smoothies, baked goods, or puree them to make freezer jam later in the year.

Come January, it may be winter outside, but it will always be summer in our freezer.

A Brand Spankin' New Year

Isn't it amazing how the beginning of a new calendar can make everything seem possible? A whole year stretching ahead with nothing but possibilities. We've started off our New Year by clearing out the clutter and junk from our house. We've bagged it, boxed it, and either thrown it out or boxed it for charity. We're not done with all of the rooms but we're 75% there. It feels good to get rid of stuff that is no longer needed or wanted.

Last year I watched a movie ("Food Inc.") and read two books ("Omnivores Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food") that changed the way I think about food and changed the way my family eats (well, 95% of the time, that is). I'd like to look back at this past year and revisit the resolutions I made a year ago today.

2010 Res.#1- Buy fewer processed foods - Last year I jumped right in and tried to make everything possible from scratch. I made hamburger rolls, pretzels, crackers, ... you name it. Some things were wonderful and some things were flops. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Don't get me wrong, I love cooking and baking but I would like to continue to love it. By burning myself out (pun intended) by trying to make everything, I ruin the fun and love of food. Food shouldn't be a chore.

Evan learning to roll out pizza dough

Last year I started to slowly transition from making everything under the stars to making some things and buying the rest. I've found a good balance that I'm happy with. The foods I do buy are as close to whole foods as I can manage while still saving me time in the kitchen. I look at labels and find foods with fewest ingredients and ingredients I recognize as food. I make all our cookies, muffins, and treats. The snack foods I buy are crackers, pretzels, and the occasional bag of chips. I tried making those from scratch but I've been met with only mediocre success. So now I buy them and bake them when I want to... and when it makes me happy.

I've finally been successful in ridding our house of foods containing High-Fructose Corn Syrup or Partially Hydrogenated oils. I've been able to find foods from Walmart that are free of those ingredients which makes it easier to stick to our grocery budget. It was tricky finding some things that didn't contain those ingredients (Worcestershire sauce and beans... who know?) but it makes grocery shopping more fun. Okay, fun might be pushing it a bit. Still, playing "read the ingredients" can be enlightening.

2010 Res.#2- Buy local whenever possible -

I've added lots of local products to our diet this past year.... beef, pork, honey, eggs, and all kinds of fruits and veggies. I've added as many things as I can manage without stress and without breaking the bank. My sister raised chickens for me this past year so now my freezer is full of free-range chicken. My mom has a wonderful flock of backyard chickens and is VERY generous with sharing the eggs they lay.

Some things have proved too expensive (local pastured poultry and local dairy) so I do what I can and I don't stress about the rest. I still buy bacon from the store. Until I can find a good local source with bacon I can afford, I'll switch. Until then, I buy bacon and don't stress. Again, it's all about balance for me.

Homemade cinnamon rolls with local scrambled eggs and homemade applesauce from local apples

2010 Res. #3 - Get the most from my garden - Well, last year's garden started off great but soon went downhill starting with temperatures in the 90's in April! We had a hot, hot summer with either no rain or way too much. We traveled 4 of 8 weeks last summer so it made keeping up with weeds and harvests challenging to say the least. I could have spent every moment that I was home between vacations weeding, watering, and trying to save anything that would survive our unusual summer but instead I decided to let it go. Letting it go was hard because of all the planning and work that went into making last year's garden. I was sad to look out and see my meadow of weeds but it was a lost cause.

So, last year's third resolution was a flop. The good news is that there is no garden police. Thank goodness or else I would have been thrown in the slammer for neglect. I'm hoping that this year our weather will be a bit closer to average. I'm going to plan a garden around our summer traveling. I will grow a garden that provides me with enjoyment as well as food. And if all else fails, I'll be at the Farmer's Market, basket in hand.

Last year's resolutions led to the way that we eat now. I am so happy with the food that we eat. I'm happy with the balance I've found. I don't want to be fearful of food and I don't want to lose the joy of eating it.

So, this year? What do I want to resolve to do this year? Well, I'm not quite sure. I'm very happy with life at this moment. I guess if I had to pick one thing to do differently this year, I would pick.... drum roll, please..

2011 New Year's Resolution ... Eat More Vegetables

Yep, that's it. Nothing dramatic. I want to "keep on, keepin' on" the way I am right now... only with a few more veggies in my diet.

So, here's wishing you a Happy New Year full of possibilities!

Of Pumpkins and Candy

Last week Evan helped me buy two local pumpkins. The one on the left is a pie variety that I bought from a farmer close to Jon's school. Every year he piles pumpkins on his front lawn. Each pumpkin has a little tag on it with the price and there's a mason jar sitting next the pumpkins for the money. I'll be turning this pumpkin into lots of pumpkin puree to put in the freezer for this year's pumpkin pies, muffins, and all other things pumpkin flavored.... but that will be a job for this weekend.

The typical, bright orange pumpkin is from the farmer's market. Evan picked it out. This is the pumpkin that was the star of the show this past Sunday.

So, under our shade sail on the back patio, we set out to carve a jack-a-lantern. Charlotte never got tired of saying "Ewwww...." even though she was more then willing to reach her hand in and grab seeds.

Jon was the photographer and he always surprises me with such fantastic pictures. I love Evan in the shadows of this one.

Everyone helped scrap out the goo. Goo is the technical term, right?

Great job, Charlotte!

Jon's extreme close up of me carving the eye of the pumpkin.

I swear, the knife was not that close to Evan's face.

Ta-da!

Here is our silly jack-a-lantern all aglow.

We went to our friend's house to trick or treat and have dinner.

Charlotte was a princess. She picked out her own outfit from her dress-up box.

Evan was Winnie The Pooh.

The kids loved trick or treating with their friends.

It was a great night. We called it a day after about 10 houses. That was plenty of walking for the little ones.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Farmer's Market Pick-Me-Up

This past Saturday morning, I was trying to answer emails while listening to the children bounce between fussing with each other and joining forces to make as much happy noise as possible. Jon was trying to catch up on some sleep in the bedroom since he's working such long hours now due to marching band.
I couldn't help but laugh at myself for thinking Saturday mornings were supposed to be relaxing. No one told my children that Saturdays were for lounging around. So, I decided we could use a change of scenery.
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Charlotte decided to stay home with Jon because she was convinced that we wouldn't get back in time for her to go to a birthday party hours later. Evan and I loaded up into the van and off we went to the Farmer's Market.
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The thing I love best at going to the market early on a Saturday morning is that you don't have to spend much money to get some really great things. It's also nice to say hi to the vendors that I've come to know a bit.
I brought home a small jar of local honey. It's a light tasting honey perfect for topping english muffins. I finally bought a small bowl to replace my Mother's Day bowl. Lastly I bought some goat's milk lotion and a bag of soap scraps. I put the scraps in a twist-tied onion bag and use it just like regular bar soap.
Evan also bought a little bag of sesame seed cookies but they were eaten too fast to snap a picture of them.
Here's the pretty little bowl with salt in it. I'm keeping this one far away from the soy sauce bottle.

I was in such a better mood when I got home. Getting out of the house for a bit and bringing home little treasures was just what I needed.

Our Visit to Katie's House

The kids and I traveled to Maryland during the first week of August to stay with my sister and her family. Jon was going to be working 12+ hours a day since it was the first week of marching band camp so he stayed home.

My sister, Katie, also blogged about our visit.


I helped Katie bring some of her homemade crafts to her local fair grounds to enter them.

I loved her picture of her turkey. Unfortunately she didn't place with this picture but she did really well otherwise.

Doesn't everyone have turkey's on their roof??

Evan liked playing in Elmer's crate. See... you can give kids all kinds of fancy toys and what do they play with?.... animal crates!

Charlotte had a great time playing with her cousins, Kylee and Devin.




On Saturday, Katie, Evan and I went to their local farmer's market. There were some beautiful booths set up by the vendors. Our local farmers don't worry so much about aesthetics. I enjoyed seeing their displays.

I love the bell tower in the background.

This bakery stand had the most beautiful breads. I bought a loaf of sourdough. It was beautiful.

Evan enjoyed checking out the canon.

Katie has a few guineas and boy do they make a crazy amount of noise! They have such beautiful feathers though. I love the soft gray of this guinea.

Evan made Katie beautiful. Devin is playing cards with David in the back and if you look carefully, you can see Charlotte in the doorway wearing her tutu.

Broiler chickens, laying chickens, turkeys, and guineas.... who ALL run at you if they think it's time to eat. It was a sight to behold!

I helped Katie can some venison steaks. She got a new pressure canner for Christmas and this was it's maiden canning voyage.

My job was to stuff the jars full of the meat and broth and get the air bubbles out. (I love the way that Elmer sits with his bottom tucked under)

We had a great week. It made me really sad that we don't live closer.... maybe one day.

Stocking The Freezer With Blueberries

A few weeks ago I went to the farmer's market with the only goal of buying lots and lots of blueberries. I think I succeeded. My favorite blueberry guy at the farmer's market said that early August would be the best time to stock the freezer because they'll be lowest in price. I bought 2 flats of blueberries for $36. That's 24 pints (3 gallons).
Evan thought he had died and gone to heaven.

I bagged 1 flat of berries and froze them whole. We'll have plenty of berries for blueberry muffins and pancakes all winter long.

I pureed the other flat and bagged in 2 cup amounts to be used to make jam and blueberry applesauce in the coming months.

Wordless Wednesday - Farmer's Market Fruit Salad

Farmer's Market Loot

Here's my take from a recent trip to the Farmer's Market. I'm finding that I like to go on Friday morning instead of Saturday's because there are fewer people. Saturday's are so busy that you can hardly get through the crowd. I usually don't like blackberries but these beauties were so sweet. We ate the pint of berries and then I pureed and strained the quart. I put the 2 cups of seedless puree in the freezer to save for jam making soon.

4 pints of blueberries...

3 pounds of lettuce.... for $3. A great deal and it stayed fresh the entire week. We had salads from it for 3 different meals.

Peaches, cantaloupe, watermelon.... Have I mentioned how much I love summer produce??

Finally, goat's milk soap from a new vendor at the Farmer's market... Horse 'O Peace Ranch. I bought a 4 oz. bar of Calendula soap for $3.50. I picked Calendula because it's supposed to be good for eczema... so this is Evan's soap. He gave me a free sample of tea tree soap to see how Evan did with that also. So far we love the soap.

Mother's Day - My Weekend Part I

When Jon asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day, I told him that I wanted to walk through the farmer's market taking my time and see if anything caught my eye. We also wanted to go to a spring festival, and I wanted a clean house and chocolate cake... those will be covered in Part II and III.

So, back to my farmer's market morning....
This is Gail Henderson of Back Porch Pottery. She has beautiful pottery and everything from magnets to pitchers to bowls.

I loved the huge blueish gray one on the right. Maybe next time.

This is bowl I decided to buy myself for Mother's Day. It's about 5 inches tall. I loved the shiny green interior and the rust colored outside. I'm using it to keep my sea salt in for now.

Then I stopped by Pennwood Puritanicals to talk to Anna. She makes the most beautiful goats milk soaps, lotions, and other products. She has every scent you could imagine.

I picked up a bar of unscented for Evan since he has sensitive skin and eczema. Her soap is very gentle and never bothers him.

The kids explored this little bridge/gazebo. They said it was the jungle.

We picked up some really yummy candied pecans from Frank. He had so many great varieties of peanuts too but we had already picked up a bag of roasted peanuts a few minutes before.

I got another gallon of strawberries. This time I asked when they were picked to be sure I didn't end up with rotten berries like the week before. These were picked the day before, not sprayed with any pesticides, and we ate every single one! Not a rotten one in the whole bucket. I think I know who to buy strawberries from now. I plan to pick up much more this weekend so I can start making jam.

This asparagus was so delicious. I wish I could have afforded to buy more but it was $4 a pound so I only bought one pound this time.

And lastly, I bought these 3 huge sweet potatoes that I was told were local but I'm not sure I believe it. Maybe potatoes store that well but I'll have to ask more questions next time.